Business briefs

DURHAM — Regado Biosciences Inc. was expected to cut five of its 32 full-time employees by Thursday.

The majority of the affected employees worked in drug discovery at the company’s laboratory in North Carolina, according to a regulatory filing.

The news was first reported by the Triangle Business Journal.

The company is a Duke University spin-out based in New Jersey that recently made its public debut on the stock market.

It’s developing new systems for treatment of cardiovascular diseases. Its lead product candidate, called REG1, is an anticoagulant for use by patients with a variety of acute coronary syndromes undergoing a hospital-based procedure used to open or widen obstructed coronary arteries.

The goal of the layoff was to allow the company focus management and financial resources on advancing its lead product candidate, REG1, in a Phase 3 trial in patients with a variety of cardiovascular conditions undergoing percutaneous coronary intervention, or PCI, procedures.

The company expected the reduction to result in annualized savings of about $625,000, starting in the second quarter of 2014.